Gift Wrapped (Looney Tunes)
Gift Wrapped is a 1952 Looney Tunes short, directed by Friz Freleng. It was first released on February 16, 1952, and was later reissued under the "Blue Ribbon" Merrie Melodies series. Synopsis Sylvester the cat awakes on Christmas morning to find a present for him. To his disappointment, it is merely a rubber mouse. He hears his hated rival, Tweety, singing "Jingle Bells" in his cage, which has been gift wrapped and addressed to Granny. Just before she enters the room, he switches the cage's tag so that it's addressed "To Kitty" instead. Granny innocently gives it to him and opens the box with the rubber mouse. Believing that there has been an innocent mix-up, she goes to give it to Sylvester and correct the mistake. Upon seeing a satisfied Sylvester hiccup Tweety's feathers, Granny realizes what has occurred and angrily forces him to cough up Tweety. After giving him a scolding, Granny insists that he kiss Tweety under a sprig of mistletoe. He eats him again instead, and is once again scolded and forced to spit him out. Granny places Tweety's cage up high where Sylvester should not be able to reach it. Undaunted, he retrieves a ladder, climbs up to it, and opens it with the intent to eat him. Tweety manages to convince Sylvester that there is a huge present addressed to him waiting under the Christmas tree. He abandons Tweety in his greed, and opens the present with relish. It turns out to be Hector the Bulldog, who promptly eats him. Granny arrives and forces Hector to spit out Sylvester, and then throws him out of her house. Sylvester attempts to get to Tweety by using a toy steam crane. Instead, he catches an angry Granny, who bashes him away with a broom. Sylvester retreats to the second floor and attempts to saw a hole in it so as to be able to descend upon Tweety from above. Tweety replaces himself in his cage with a stick of lit dynamite, which goes off just as Sylvester pulls the cage up to his level. He then puts the wrecked cage back and stumbles down the stairs, blackened and torn up from the explosion. Sylvester next attempts a Western-style showdown with Tweety; himself playing the part of Geronimo, with Tweety playing Hopalong Cassidy. Sylvester wins, but before he can consume his prize, Granny shoots a plunger over his mouth, and declares, "You didn't count on Pocahantas, did you, Geronimo?" While Tweety plays on his new train set, Sylvester tries to catch him one last time. He takes some spare train tracks, sets them up to point towards his open mouth, and the puts the train in reverse. It goes over the new tracks, and towards Sylvester who then devours Tweety, only to be devoured himself by Hector who has somehow gotten back in the house. Granny whacks Hector until he coughs up Sylvester, and then does the same to Sylvester until he coughs up Tweety. Granny announces she's had enough, and that she'll show Sylvester and Hector there will be peace in the house once and for all. The cartoon ends with Granny and Tweety singing a variation of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". On Tweety's right and left are Sylvester and Hector with stamps over their mouths. Censorship *When the cartoon aired on ABC as part of , the shot of Sylvester staggering down the stairs after getting blown up by the dynamite that Tweety substituted for himself in his cage. Also cut was the part during the "Hopalong Cassidy" sequence where Sylvester gets shot by Tweety's toy gun and falls down the Christmas tree (with an abrupt cut from traveling up it to Tweety being chased by Sylvester). *When aired on Cartoon Network and Kids' WB!, the "dynamite in the cage" sequence was left intact, but the entire "Hopalong Cassidy" sequence was edited out from fade in to fade out (because of the American Indian stereotyping), fading out into the train sequence instead (though an identical scene was retained in the clip show cartoon entitled Tweet Dreams when that short aired on both channels). Availability The cartoon was made available (fully-restored and uncut) on the Looney Tunes - The Collector's Edition: A Looney Life VHS, released in 1999, and then on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 DVD set, released in 2004. It was later featured on the Looney Tunes Super Stars single-disc DVD Tweety and Sylvester - Feline Fwenzy in 2010. It was then included on the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2 DVD and Blu-ray set, released in 2012. It was released again on The Best of Warner Bros.: Looney Tunes DVD set, released on June 25, 2013. This cartoon also appears to be in the public domain and has appeared on a number of public domain DVD releases. Cast External links * Looney Tunes Wiki: Gift Wrapped * Category:Warner Bros. Category:Shorts Category:Released in the 1950s Category:Theatrical releases